{see the progress here!}

It is hard to disregard all the signs of fall here – the students have returned, the streets are crowded, the tips are smaller and the nights are cooler. Perhaps the biggest sign is the state of my garden; dark and rambling, sprawling across it’s tiny box, throwing about tomatoes and broccoli and onions like no tomorrow. Can you believe it started so small? Survived a hurricane? Survived pillaging marauders? With slices of homegrown tomato sandwiching mozzarella and my fresh basil, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil- it’s hard to believe it couldn’t.

{Go here. Go now.}

You can learn all you need to know about the album, you can learn all the how’s, why’s, the charity, the tax forms and research in the same place.

To learn about love, humility, dedication, and faith in some of the most beautiful words you can muster, you’d have to go here.

Either way – you have a chance to make a difference. I’m not a big charity plugger, I don’t do causes. But words cannot express the love that we both have in this house for this family, and so we’re asking you – go. Buy. Listen. Love. Do. Fun. Stuff.

• I can’t get enough of this song. I’m sure the people on the treadmills beside me in the morning can.
• But if an altercation is forced, hopefully I’ll be wearing this.
• This makes me itch for blue hair again. Who knew?
• Barring blue hair, perhaps purple eyebrows?
• I’ve been reading this book, and it makes me crave campfires to tell stories around.
• We spent a random Tuesday night on the ocean, diving off of sandbars and watching the sky. The pictures hardly do justice to such a magical night..

I feel a junkie rush each Saturday morning at the market, slipping my hands over stacks of carrots, fondling spinach leaves and squeezing baby beets. My eyes get cloudy and I can barely hold onto my bagel as we slip from one aisle to the next, Jared laden down with bags as I furiously cram paper sacks and handfuls of produce and eggs and tiny boxes into every available hand. I sniff and squeeze and listen to recipes, roll blueberries in my mouth and bury my face in dahlias as he saunters behind me with his coffee, guardian to a woman epicuriously possessed. This week it was raspberries and blueberries, new and tart and bright, taunting and hallucinogenic. Encased in a not too sweet pound cake, toasted and slathered with salty butter, these slabs ward off the shakes and autumn like spongy methadone.

{As usual, all changes to the recipe or general hilarity where I burnt myself, forgot something, or think that something really sucked are noted with an asterisk and annotated at the end of the recipe.  Those are usually the funny parts. Recipe borrowed from A Handmade Life, reprinted from Bon Appetit, July 1986. Infinite thanks to Kyla for the gift of the book, and the sentiments contained within.}

2 cups plus 8 tablespoons cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cup) butter diced at room temp
2 tablespoons kirsch*
1 cup blueberries
1 cup raspberries

* I did leave this out, mostly because I couldn’t shell out the money for it when I was pushing my other habit – fresh produce. The cake didn’t suffer too much I think, though it was quite dense and some moisture probably would have went a long way.

Generously butter a 9-cup Bundt pan, and dust it with flour, shaking out the excess.

In the bowl of a food processor, blend together the eggs and the sugar until smooth and thick, about 1 minute, stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the butter and kirsch, and blend until the mixture is fluffy, about 1 minute, stopping once to scrape down the bowl. Add 2 cups plus 6 Tbs flour, baking powder, and salt, and pulse twice or so to just combine. Do not overmix.

In a large bowl, toss the raspberries and blueberries with the remaining 2 Tbs flour. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter into the berries. Transfer this finished batter to the prepared Bundt pan, spreading it evenly across the top. Place the Bundt pan on the center rack in a cold oven, and turn the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake until a toothpick or knife inserted in the cake’s center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 25 minutes. Cool the cake in the pan for 5 minutes; then invert it onto a rack to cool completely. *

*we may or may not have also made french toast out of this. Just sayin’.

We ended up with a fluke long weekend this week, and took full advantage! Jared took me out on a fancy lunch date on Friday, and we took the opportunity to sit on the patio and soak up what is soon to be the very last of the hot summer sun. We make it to the farmers market on Saturday morning despite torrential rains, and were duly rewarded with amazing fruit, veggies and bagels with cream cheese and lox. We spent Sunday drinking, dancing, eating and tie dying before falling into the ocean at night exhausted and happy. We’ve taken today to relax, sleep in and wash the dye from our fingers and the salt from our hair, curling up in warm sheets to keep away the first of the cooler nights.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S2oPkphiIo

I put it on a CD for him years ago. It became a song suspended between shitty airport bars and shuttles, an inaudible sign that we were both leaving and moving father away in miles, closer together in measures and notes.

Between ticket counters and security checks we would slip on our headphones and listen for the first rasping cackles, the notes emerging as if pulled through the fog of red eye flights, the swells breaking as I wiped my eyes on damp sleeves and slipped noiselessly through the metal detectors.We were always going in opposite directions.

Somewhere between the departure lounge and 3 years later, this song has become the harbinger of adventure. Somewhere 30,000 feet above ourselves, checking in and out of many cities and many flights, bounded by ticket counters and gangways, we started listening together.

Between countless crappy cups of airport coffee, Christmases apart and vacations together there is that moment. There is that moment where he reaches out his hand and he slips on his headphones. A moment where he slides his hand behind him, grasping at the air, extending his hand to mine. A moment where my hand slaps into his, we fall in step, we press play, and we go.

This September I’ll be hitting play alone as I head here, passport in hand.

At this point it has become tragically obvious that in my dogged and flawed pursuit (and subsequent tragic failure) of this project, I was remiss in mentioning one particular yet key factor: It’s success was entirely dependent upon my discovering the ineffable key to manufacturing time.

All my talk of arrows and bows, aims and targets fell to pieces once I realized that as much as this was a game I so very much wanted to play, I was left carrying my bows and arrows to and from 12 hour work days. The feathers split and the flints became mired in a purse full of discarded gum and cigarette shells, my bow string snapped when I haphazardly tried to (only mockingly) strangle myself with it.

If targets were goals and arrows resolve, then time was the field I was playing in. Insofar as we can stretch a metaphor, it must be recognized that “field” was a really kind word for that strip of “grass” that grows between the sidewalk slabs, and “time” was a really nice word for those five minutes outside of work where I’m not stuffing my face or falling asleep. Or trying to do both at once.

Guiltily, I must tell you – I’ve known this for months. My goals fell around me crumpled and stained with ketchup and beer like so many dirty uniforms I pulled off over the nights when suddenly… Somewhere between confusing myself with sewing patterns turned to semi-edible paste with tears and debiting my sleep account into serious overdraft, I realized what torturous meta lesson I had actually taught myself.

There is only so much time. Protect your arrows. Protect your goals. In the end, there is nothing more torturous that attempting to make homemade marshmallows in between 8 hour shifts as a sycophantic challenge to yourself.

So as a failed alchemist unable to turn enthusiasm into hours, I’ve taken another route – I’m finding time. In the cooler hours of the morning I’m slowly getting into shape at the gym. In the evenings I have off, I’m signing up for Home Ec. In the weeks that I have off, I’m planning travel. And in the hours that I don’t have any time at all right now, I touch my arrows, and I look at the field to come.

Because sometimes, you just have to buy your fucking marshmallows from the store.

It was a quiet weekend filled with waiting. J finally made his way home this weekend, we celebrated his birthday quietly with a carefully crafted dinner and glass of wine together. It was a weekend filled with little gifts – sunshine when I least expected, a new dress, painted nails and fresh new produce. It was spent hushed up in each other, waiting for the rest of the summer to creep in our windows and surprise us.

Saskatchewan, in it’s bizarre and barren nothingness, is beautiful. The skies are so big you take them into yourself for 180 degrees, the weather alternately blisters you with heat then cold, and the kindness of strangers often overwhelms. Saskatchewan fills the void with the people that live there, and we spent an amazing 3 days immersed somewhere between learning old family history and creating new history with J’s family – the first time I’d met them all.  It was perfect. Prairie thunderstorms rumbled in our chests, the sun singed our noses and our hands were held, sticky with marshmallows, buy the people that love us.

We’re off to Saskatchwan this weekend for a family reunion, to spend four days in the sun, pool and tents. I’m looking forward to the time off, the time with J, and some time to just.. breathe. It’s been a strange and hectic dash through the end of July, and I’m looking forward to 10 days off to recoup, reorient and relax. Until I’m back.. for your pleasure!

• this may be my new summer song. Also: where can I get a feather headdress?
• Stripes do make everything better. If I had a dream tea towel, chances are, these would be them.
• this compendium of the best magazine articles ever written is going to get a thorough perusing.
• who know I was canning up a storm during Can-A-Rama?! Brilliant!
• no feather headdress? no matter.
• I’m beginning to suspect this gentlemen may be a nutter. How is every date so good? He must sedate them.
• the perfect summer drink? close.